New Mexico Bingo
New Mexico has a complex gambling past. When the IGRA was signed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that would not be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in Nineteen Ninety to negotiate a compact with New Mexico Indian bands. When the working group came to an agreement with two big local bands a year later, the Governor declined to sign the bargain. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that Native wagering in New Mexico was now a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the accord, thus costing the state of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full compact amongst the State of New Mexico and its American Indian tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, which includes American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since 1999. In that year, New Mexico charity game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Nonprofit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently popular in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the pie. With hope, the politicians are done batting around gambling as an important matter like they did in the 90’s. That’s most likely wishful thinking.
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